Mailbag: Educators nurture OC’s history of prejudice

The ideas of Alexandria Coronado and Elizabeth Parker, members of the useless and out-of-touch Orange County Board of Education, on the proposed Harvey Milk Day represent a slap in the face to the thousands of gay and lesbian schoolchildren in Orange County.

San Francisco Supervisor Harvey Milk not only fought for gay rights but also fought for everyone’s civil rights including the right to be happy.

Coronado suggests a Ronald Reagan day “” what did he do for people’s rights? Reagan took away the right that public servants had to pay into and receive Social Security, attacked our California university system and closed our mental hospitals, leaving the insane on the street to fend for themselves.

In Orange County, it’s not surprising that two school board members reflect a historical culture of ignorance and prejudice.

ROGER CARTER

Laguna Beach

Council ignores taxpayers’ wishes

The City Council has ignored the hundreds of e-mails protesting their plan to house homeless vagrants at Act V.

They have chosen to waste our tax money, and further insulting the taxpayers by spinning an earmarked expenditure from “unanticipated property tax money and appropriations from the Housing Fund.”

This means the poor suckers who paid $50 million for houses in Emerald Bay this year, some paying $7,000 a month in property taxes, are footing the bill for Irell and Manella’s contrived nobility to allow homeless public camping. This is eroding the most valuable asset we have “” the brand “Laguna.”

I must ask each of the council members to do their pro rata share as residents. For example, Mayor Kelly Boyd: Because you voted against our citizens’ wishes, and support spending our tax money to house the homeless living in Laguna Beach, it would be proper and noble of you to feed the homeless before they go to bed at Act V at your bar, the Marine Room. And the homeowners in Emerald Bay should secede into Newport Beach to ensure their security and limit their vulnerability to increased taxation.

LOU VOLPANO

Laguna Beach

Locals should lend business a hand

Guy Ross’ letter regarding the signage at Beadline (“This kind of help not needed,” Oct. 2) struck a chord.

I’ve been a customer of Beadline for more than 20 years. I originally met the owner, Naomi, in the 1970s when she had a shop across the street from Vacation Village, now Pacific Edge. It wasn’t until she opened on the corner of Anita and I saw the sign “beads, beads, beads” that we reconnected. Those words drew me in. Everywhere you look is color and texture. Naomi’s signage is important to sustaining her business and leading customers to finding not just beads, but treasures from far away lands and times.

We’ve all seen the closing sale and vacancy signs. As a former retail business owner and chamber president, I understand how difficult it can be to keep your business alive, even in the best of times.

Should our city be focusing on signage codes at this time? I don’t think so. The last thing a business owner needs right now is to spend more money. Maintenance repairs alone can permanently close doors.

What can we do to help keep our businesses open? I believe that the need is to attract customers from neighboring communities and to draw support from our residents and city officials.

Summer is over; next year’s Pageant is a distant glimmer. We’ve all heard the statement, “We now have our town back.” Yes, we are back to the 25,000 residents, and the millions have gone back home. Our businesses are struggling, and the burden rests on our collective shoulders.

Purchase your tires or repair your car in town. Enjoy a locals-night special at a popular restaurant. Explore! Park your car in a different spot or turn left instead of right. Check out a store that appears out of your age group or style. You may not find something for yourself, but the new awareness gained will help you to promote it to others.

Take advantage of all the free events in town. Stop by the Chamber of Commerce, it’s right next door to the library, or say “hello” to the folks at the Visitor’s Bureau on Forest. Go to the monthly chamber mixers and meet the business owners. The Forest Avenue Promenade is an exciting event, but don’t forget that many of our wonderful businesses are not on Forest.

Visit the Historical Society’s Murphy-Smith bungalow on Ocean Avenue and pick up a walking tour list of historical buildings. The more you are out and about and learn about our town, the greater the chance is to promote our businesses and to get to know your neighbors.

Let’s all be our town’s business ambassadors and spend a little money while we’re at it.

SUNNY TAYLOR-COLBY

Laguna Beach

Health-care debate spreading lies

I am alarmed and saddened by the heated “discussion” over health care. The opposition insists it is only concerned with the threat of “big government.” I don’t believe it for a minute. Just like the campaign against Hillary Clinton to keep her from changing health care, they are now using fear of “socialism” to stop its passage. By “they” I believe it is the insurance and pharmaceutical companies. They are concerned because they stand to lose their obscene profits.

Unfortunately, the very people this program will help are being manipulated and exploited. The “big, bad government” is going to take over their lives. So many half-truths and misinformation, no, lies, have been blindly accepted by them. This is NOT democracy!

R. SHELTON

Laguna Beach

Fish, hunt or cut bait

The human division of labor goes all the way back to Paleolithic times when some men hunted and others stayed behind and decorated caves.

A proliferation of painters at the expense of hunters finally triggered the inevitable backlash. That’s where the term “starving artists” comes from.

These pendulum swings from overabundance to extreme scarcity continued for thousands of years until the emergence of civilization with towns like Laguna Beach where everyone is an artist or pretends to be while the appearance of a hunter in the hills is as rare as a sighting of Bigfoot.

To restore the balance of nature, shouldn’t we stock the Greenbelt with wild boar and match our fabulous art shows with a little hunt, feast and frolic?

As long as the girls won’t let us fish, why not something for the boys?

DONN B. TRAGNITZ

Laguna Beach

President must take stronger action

I am sorry to say I am losing hope with the Obama administration. I hoped against my better judgment that we as a people could have major change in a fair and honest way. Instead the pendulum is still stuck to the right. I do not believe that a middle-of-the-road approach is going to work with the problems that face us as a nation. The pendulum must be allowed to swing the other way or the dam is going to break. It is simple physics.

The economy is going to crash no matter what your experts say. I see it every day on the street. The corporations have the country by the throat and won’t let go until someone has the vision to lead this country in a new direction of a free and just society. People are not free if the pursuit of happiness denies them the opportunity to provide for their families. It is the job of government to make sure the game is fair and square.

I believed you and your administration to be the “great American hope!” Politics has always been the lesser of two evils and to your credit your administration is the lesser of the two evils. I hope you can be more. I wish you only success.

MICHAEL R. EVANS, 1st Lt. U.S. Army Ret.

Laguna Beach